


one lonely star

by FLWhite



Series: Braxel [3]
Category: SKAM (France), SKAM (TV) RPF
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Angst, Break Up, Emotional Constipation, First Meetings, Hand Jobs, M/M, Nonmonogamous Relationship, Oral Sex, Pining, RPF, Realism Imane Realism, Rimming, a lot of pining, caveat lector this shit is emo as hell, maxel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-09 17:27:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18921682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FLWhite/pseuds/FLWhite
Summary: Eight months and twenty-seven days ago, in a sticky summer night as it bled into morning, they'd kissed like they were lovers for the last time.Eight months and twenty-six days ago, after waking together in his bed, they'd promised to stay friends.*Sorry, les gars, I listened too many times tothis coverof Madonna's "Take A Bow" and I just had to do this. Excusez-moi. As always, a work of pure fiction for AO3 users only.





	1. take a bow, the night is over

**July**

Eight months and twenty-seven days ago, in a sticky summer night as it bled into morning, they'd kissed like they were lovers for the last time.

Eight months and twenty-six days ago, after waking together in his bed, they'd promised to stay friends.

Not really him, though. His grandmother had always said that a promise made unwillingly was no promise at all, and it was better not to risk one's good name for it than to pretend.

But what else could he have said, when it was in fact both of their good names that were in peril?

He remembers that Axel's eyes were the opaque blue of the sea under hard sun as he spread his hands. Magpies clattered too-loudly beyond his open window, through which the light of midmorning slanted like a dagger. "No, the girls might not mind for now, but they'd mind if they really knew. Or if more people knew."

" _Really_ knew?" He can still feel the clench of his stomach, taste the sourness in his throat. "I've told Héloïse everything."

Axel's mouth had sagged at its corners; he'd looked, for the first time, truly frightened, though his eyes remained aloof, a stranger's. " _Everything_?"

"Everything," he repeated. "She knows it's different with us, than with me and her. Different things that she can't give me."

"God, Maxe, _why_? What if—what if she took it to—" Axel scrubbed his face with one hand. "Why? Why would you tell her?"

"I love her, and I don't lie to people I love. And me, what haven't you told me?"

"Come on, it's not the same for me. You know it's not." Axel had slid away, beyond his reach, gone to the window and drawn down the blinds, behind which the magpies' clack-clack-clack continued. "Fuck, imagine the shitstorm. You might have it made already, acting is just your—your new thing, but me, this, this would stick to me forever."

He'd been silenced by shock, and, at last, fear, as it glided over him: an enormous shadow, an eclipse nearing totality. He'd opened and closed his mouth like a mer-creature drowning in the quickly heating air as Axel continued speaking, the syllables fast and tumbling, a slide of bitter stones. "You hate being practical, maybe, but you had to have known, Maxe, you had to have known we couldn't spread this around. That—that'd be crazy, that'd be ridiculous, we're not actually— Maxe, c'mon. Please. Maxe, no."

Why had he pushed away Axel's returning embrace, then? Why hadn't he left the tears slip free, let himself cry into that shoulder, put his mouth against the salty, blood-warm skin one more time? Maybe it was pride; maybe he, even as the sun was being slowly blotted out, hadn't allowed himself to believe it could be happening.

Either way, the utterest stupidity.

Still tasting the friction, at a drowsy moment long past midnight, of Axel's slightly chapped lower lip against his own, he'd whispered at the rumpled sheets, "So it's the end, this?"

Axel had pretended not to hear. After a while, he began to talk; he went on and on about friendship and summering in the Alps and this crazy Indian place that he'd gone to with Charlène the week before and another one-man role he thought he might get and Ouba's new hairstylist. It was all very funny.

Eventually, Maxence said _ha-ha_ and Axel said it back.

They did not meet each other's eyes.

*

Axel, before turning at last to walk out Maxence's door, had tried to put arms around him, but he'd offered only his right hand.


	2. hide behind your smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Axel had been the real reason. Of course.

**April**

Eleven months and twenty days ago, he'd moved.

Too much stuff was the official reason: _finally, I can see the floorboards_ , he'd captioned a photo of the new living room, bins of fan-sent fuzzy hats and screen-printed T-shirts and tubes of pictures and everything else Tetrised into the built-in, floor-to-ceiling shelves. Axel had been the third to like the post.

Axel had been the real reason. Of course.

To have him at the door at one, two, three in the morning after a show or trip—bleary-eyed but soft-mouthed and eager for kisses, for slow strokes under the covers, but also sometimes for roughness and a stinging thigh—was a delight, but also a fucking pain in the ass. No matter how many times Maxence texted him, reminders of _rehearsal all day tomorrow_ or _a long shoot in Versailles Tuesday_ , there he would predictably be, hair adorably flopping or adorably spiking, arms opening, the handle of his rolling bag always falling with a resounding thwack against the threshold of the door.

Yes, the new building was all of fifteen minutes away on (sluggish, jetlagged) foot. Still, when he'd finally sent Axel a photo of the lease, his pen hovering menacingly above the highlighted signature line, he'd expected a greater reaction, some real protest. Maybe a frowny face or two, at least. Axel had certainly whined whenever Maxence threatened the move, before; he'd wagged his head like a child and clung to Maxence, a petulant limpet with a sucking mouth.

But this time Axel had only replied, three hours later, — _I liked the fireplace, would they let you have an actual fire?_

A fire had sounded rather tempting as his first night in the new place fell, a little unseasonably cold. Maxence sat alone with a quietly coiled Brian. Héloïse was called in, last-minute, as understudy for Mariane in a highly post-modern _Tartuffe_ with everyone in skin-tone leotards; Axel was somewhere over Mongolia, sporadically messaging using the even more sporadically functional airplane Wi-Fi.

— _they put me on this insane Hello Kitty plane to and from Osaka_

_—you would've flipped_

_—seriously, rice shaped into Kitty's face_

_—I saved you a thing_

ERROR: IMAGE COULD NOT BE DISPLAYED

_—ah fuck you too plane_

_—it's the goddamn 21st century_

— _haha it's okay_

_—you can show me when you get back_

_—maybe you should take a nap_

 

— _fanmail awaits me, Maxe_

_—fantweets_

_I await you_ , he'd started, then backspaced. _I await your Kitty surprise_ , backspaced again.

_fucking miss you, you jerk_

_come over when you're back_

_can't you cancel the L.A. trip?_

_can't we go together?_

Backspace, backspace, backspace so hard that his thumb protested. _  
_

Finally, lamely, — _well, me too, actually_

_—have a good rest of the flight_

_—thanks dude_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think. Expect the next post to come over the weekend. 
> 
> I've also already finished a follow-up and hope you will indulge me by taking a look at that when I begin to post it, as well.


	3. do you mean what you say when there's no one around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You know, I do believe in parallel universes, for real."  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2nd dose a little earlier than I'd planned this weekend because I realized how short the previous installment was.  
> As always, thanks for reading and let me know what you thought.

**December**

Fifteen months and nine days ago, he had put his tongue for the first time behind Axel's balls, and had nearly had two handfuls of his hair ripped out for his trouble.

"Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , no, wait," Axel had said, gasping, grabbing, grimacing. "Maxe!"

"No?" He'd flicked his finger against the bead of slick gathering on Axel's tip, licked the digit clean, then kissed the velvet insides of both of Axel's thighs. "No?"

"D—dirty. It's dirty."

"And this—" he'd traced the tight bud of muscle with his roving finger. Shuddering, Axel folded in half over him, breath searing Maxence's nape. "This wasn't?" He'd let his incisors slide very softly along skin as he kissed the purpling corona of Axel's cock.

"Ugh, Maxe, fuck. Maxe, you don't—fuck!" He'd palmed the delectably firm meat of Axel's tensed ass and again applied his tongue, and that had put a pause in their conversation until a point several hours later.

  
*

"You know, I _do_ believe in parallel universes, for real."

"Oh yes?"

"Well, of course. Mathematically, it's likely."

"And are you also surfing on a huge wave in Bali in one of them?"

"Maybe." Axel had done Maxence's favorite thing—or rather, his favorite thing that could, perhaps, one day, be conceivably performed in public: snuggling his head under Maxence's chin and pressing his lips to the dip between Maxence's collarbones in tiny pulses, like an amorous fish. "And maybe in another I didn't get the part, and in another you didn't get yours, and in a third we would neither of us have ever heard of this weird Scandinavian series that didn't get renewed."

Bravely, he'd said, "Not a good universe, any of them," as his guts rippled with pain.

"But I think," Axel lifted his face, and the smile there had been one that Maxence had never seen, and would never see again, at once tender, shy, feral, and, in the downward cast of the eyelashes and the rosy shadow of the barely parted lips, infinitely sad. "I do think we would have found each other in every single one."

Couldn't he have taken Axel's cheeks in his palms, then, and kissed them, kissed the mouth full of foreboding, kissed away the tragedy? Couldn't he have taken Axel and squeezed him tightly enough to leave too little breath for even a single whispered doubt?

Of course, of course he could have, he could have and would have, should have, but he'd been slow, stunned, undone by the electric sense of peril at hand. He had not fought, he had not fled; he merely lay there, naked, spread-eagled under a man he should not actually be in love with, doing nothing at all, until the moment in which he should have replied had trickled inexorably by.

Axel sat up too fast, with a strange giggle, and reached to turn on the lamp; he had made silly faces as he sipped from the tepid, long-flat bottle of grapefuit Pellegrino that had been sitting on the nightstand for a week. And Maxence had giggled too. And they'd fallen asleep together, Axel's head on his shoulder, Axel's left hand clasped in his right, Axel's right hand curled over his heart, and it'd been easy to pretend that he hadn't failed.

But he dreamt; he had a nightmare. He, in only his shoes and a thin black coat, stood upon a glacier. The ice was rapidly melting under a sun too large in the sky, a huge disc the terrible flat color of drying blood. As the sun drew nearer, he sank, and as he sank he became the dying glacier, and Axel the red star.

He'd woken alone, gulping for air in a whirling undertow of panic. Trying to unplug his phone from the charging cable, he dropped it two or three times.

— _sorry, totally forgot I was meeting Maman for brunch and Christmas prep_

_—can you check if I left that damn white hat somewhere_

_—maybe the kitchen_

 

The hat was sitting forlornly overturned among the empty bottles from last night; he rubbed the brim where it was beginning to burr and fray. _got it_ , he'd tapped into the text box, putting the hat on his own head, where it sat comically atop his hair. He thought he could just barely catch the scent of Axel. He took a few selfies with it, showing only his forehead, in accordance with their rules: nothing immediately identifiable. Nothing immediately incriminating.

But looking at the pictures of the anonymous hat on his anonymous head was like swallowing a lump of lead; he threw the hat back onto the counter, nauseated.

 

— _no dice, looked everywhere_

_—sorry_

He'd folded the hat and put it deep into one of the drawstring sacks of hats to which he had been forced to resort for storage, out of a paucity of space, then crammed the sack into the farthest corner of the closet with the highest shelf.

 

— _shit_

_—thanks for looking though_

 

— _sure, of course_

— _hope you find it_


	4. no more masquerade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He swayed infinitesimally as they zippered their fingers together.  
> 

**October**

Seventeen months and eighteen days ago, he had had a small panic attack at three a.m., in the rain. The rain had a lot to do with it. Thunderous, drenching, it terrified him. It made the entire crew's faces somber as they contemplated what would—what must—follow: a sequence of total perfection. No second chances, or at least not without a lot of trouble for the costume team, and a lot more hours in the dark for everybody.

More concerning had been his mortifying hard-on. It would not go away; it stubbornly strained at his jeans no matter how hard he thought of the icy shower that the sky would soon provide, or of how very tired he was, or of how he tasted foully of bad coffee and white bread from the less exciting of their caterers and Axel probably did too.

Nearly hallucinating, he thought that he heard Axel call him Charlène, and had blanched thoroughly enough that one of the P.A.s asked if he needed a sip of water.

"Plenty of water, if he just opens his mouth," David had said, to obliging general laughter.

And then it was positions, and Axel, who'd been sitting silently with his earbuds in, was walked to the lip of the underpass by a P.A. with an umbrella, and he was put in his spot under the trees, and they were starting, and all he could think about was Axel. Axel two days prior, as they'd tumbled in bed, pivoting carefully under the camera like courtly dancers, avoiding bringing their knees too high or their hands too low. The little slick noises of Axel's mouth opening and shutting, the incredible hiss of his breath as he shut his eyes, the heat of his neck where it joined his jaw, pulsing under Maxence's hand.

Ironic, he'd thought, frantically, as Axel began to walk toward him, ironic that in bed, with their skin touching and their legs twined so closely, it'd been actually all right. They'd been so careful. There had been many takes—perhaps not many, but more than one. But that night, or rather that morning, he knew there was no hiding it, though he should have felt armored under his shirt and shoes and jeans and jacket, though he should have felt camouflaged by the darkness.

Instead, in a few minutes, everything would be over. Each of Axel's hesitantly approaching steps had ground his heart against his ribs. Axel would have to be pressed against him for the entire endless take, nothing between them but this fucking rain and their soaking clothes. Every shitty joke, every bit of self-congratulation for being So Brave and So Raw, So Supportive Of The LGBT Community, every shred of euphemism would be washed away, and _Axel would know._

He would know and his eyes would go rocky and cold and after they heard "cut" he would pull away from Maxence without giving any of his repulsion away and make a joke. But the punchline would float like a bit of Styrofoam above a dark and frigid sea, and that would be it, that would be all.

Finished. 

Are you afraid of the rain, too, he said, and smiled the smile of a man hearing his death sentence.

As he waited for Axel to lift his hands and for the torment of touching Axel to truly begin, he had reflected on what had led him to be standing there, dizzy with fatigue and longing, seconds away from ruining his acting career on his very first try.

Perhaps it'd been what happened earlier in the evening, the odd little squeeze that Axel had given his arm in the van as they drove for the Petite Ceinture; perhaps it'd been having to sit alone for half an hour in the chilly tunnel, in near total darkness, waiting; perhaps it'd been the hand that a kneeling Axel had slid under his chin as he sobbed, without David's prompting, as warm and right as though it had always belonged there. Perhaps he'd just listened one or ten times too many to that fucking song that day.

_You just wanna be—just wanna be—_

He swayed infinitesimally as they zippered their fingers together.

_And if I'm not the one—_

He remembers the sensation of his fear leaking through his eyes. Axel's had been as warm as his hands; they had held Maxence's, big, eager. A consummate professional. Which he'd yet again confirmed himself to certainly not be. __

_Whatever we become_ —

His heart hung in place behind his sternum, waiting to fall and shatter.

Once it jumped again, _Axel would know_.

It had jumped. Axel had jumped.

Maxence groaned as their lips mashed together, as their teeth clicked, as his arms closed around Axel and Axel's around him with loud squelches. The storm's distant rumbles swallowed it all. He hadn't been able to preserve much of his smile once their hands had touched, and, as they collided and he was overwhelmed, it vanished entirely for a while. Axel suffused him like the rain.

This was not like their slow caressing on the bed, where the false walls ended less than a meter above them and where he knew the tawny light of morning to be the product of a row of well-tuned bulbs. That had been a dance dexterously choreographed; this was wild. That had been a holding at bay; this was a possession. Axel, on tiptoe, thrust himself forward with a force that would have been frightening even if the hour weren't ungodly, grinding into Maxence as though he wanted to glue them permanently together.

With a final flash of his synapses, Maxence had tried to pull his hips away, shrink back just enough to avoid detection. But too late; he could feel the button of Axel's fly tapping against his own, catching. Only two centimeters of sodden fabric separated their flesh.

Maxence had shut his eyes, fingers scrabbling down Axel's back and tightening around the warm slimness of his waist briefly before scurrying cravenly back to cradling his neck. Let the take go on a little longer, just a little longer. _Walk on water—_

"Oh," Axel had said into his neck, too low for the mikes but not too low for his ears, "Maxe. Maxe." Then he'd smiled, wide and white in the dark. His fingers had slowly laced behind Maxence's back.

He'd shuddered like a ship colliding with a cliff.

"You mean Eliott."

Axel, tipping his head as far back as it would go, took Maxence's tongue into his mouth again, laughing like a child enjoying its first taste of a prized candy. His left hand slid for a moment down to rest on the flat of Maxence's tailbone. "No. I mean Maxe."

*

After an infinity or an eye's blink, David had shouted "cut" and everyone exploded into applause. As they disentangled themselves, Axel had murmured his name once more and squeezed his wrist before taking his hand and throwing their conjoined arms, with a cheer, above their heads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's about 1100 words left in 2 installments in this piece, which I expect to post by Thursday evening, GMT -6. Then I've got a follow-up (don't worry, it is just as morose, if not worse!) which I will begin dropping immediately thereafter. 
> 
> Then, I think, after over 100k words and way too much emotional turmoil, including guilt at not tending to anything else but pounding out sparsely read and ultimately unpublishable fiction about two admittedly charming Frenchmen, I'll really need to get back to other things, for instance My Day Job and perhaps original fiction. Thanks as ever for reading.


	5. I guess you've always known it's true

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Nice to meet you, Maxence."  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more (shortish) chapter to go here before I begin dropping the sequel. Thanks for reading.

**August  
**

Nineteen months and twenty-six days ago, he had broken his foot.

Nineteen months and twenty-four days ago, he had signed on a dotted line to break his own heart.

He'd known Axel's face since hearing from Elisabeth about the casting call. Before he had spent the first of hundreds of hours on the Internet, researching this Scandinavian show with the weird IKEA-sofa name, he'd gone directly to Google, typed in Axel's name (what a name, like a superhero, like the hero of a children's book) and hit "J'ai la chance."

Kind of cute, he'd thought, thumbing through Axel's Instagram. He had sniffed with amusement at the bald, goggling baby in blue. Hasn't gotten much bigger since, he'd thought, watching a blurry Axel take a bow, shining in white.

Fuck, his eyes are the size of dinner plates, he'd thought, wondering what it'd be like to watch them slide closed as he kissed the grinning mouth beneath them.

Seeing those eyes trained on him in life was something for which he had not been—maybe _could_ not have been—prepared. "Oh, fuck," the boy who might be becoming his lover for six to fourteen hours a day for the next three months had said, spring upright as Maxence hobbled into the room.

The rubber end of his crutch squealed on the linoleum despite his best efforts. He'd felt as red as the _sortie_ sign glowing above his head.

David, Niels, and Carole, already standing, had surrounded him, slapping their clipboards and papers onto the rickety-looking table he'd already sat at twice with them. Even the woman behind the camera looked consternated. "Dear God," David said, putting a careful hand on his bicep. "Is it very bad?"

"He has an air cast, David," Niels had shaken his head while rolling his eyes. " _Is it very bad_." He dexterously opened a folding chair behind Maxence's knees while taking one of Maxence's elbows and easing him backward. "Let's get your weight off that."

"Er, they said it's only a hair—hairline fracture," he'd said, trying not to stammer. Seated, he could no longer see Axel's face; only the top of the bushy head was visible over Carole's shoulder. "The cast's so that it hopefully heals quicker. No—no more than three weeks, they think. Maybe just two."

"Good, that's good," David had looked around at the others at they sat; the tiniest of nods all around. "That'd be more than enough time before rehearsals, certainly." He nodded again, with firm reassurance. "Calcium, Maxence, calcium and Vitamin D."

"We were hoping you could do a cold-read together, actually, Maxence." Niels passed him a sheaf of binder-clipped paper, and Carole turned to hand Axel the same. He met that dark blue stare for a moment, then had to look away so he could breathe. A fucking cold-read, just his luck.

"Yes, of course." He'd begun to skim Eliott's lines, already marked in yellow, thankful for something safe and steady to stare at, but felt his cheeks begin to warm again as he took in the words. Of all the possible scenes.

He jerked bodily in his chair at Axel's theatrically loud clearing of his throat. "Aren't you going to introduce us, Papa?"

"Oh, sorry, sorry! What with the crutches—Maxence, this is Axel, our Lulu." David, rising, had bowed as though he wore a powdered wig and silken hose; Axel and Carole snickered while Niels again rolled his eyes. "And _mon petit_ , I present to thee Maxence Danet-Fauvel."

Axel's smile had been a revelation, a snap of lightning, the point of a lance between his ribs. "Nice to meet you, Maxence."

"You—you too." Desperately wishing he had thought to wipe his palm on his leg discreetly after sitting down, he'd extended his hand and smiled back, feeling about as composed as a citrus, freshly peeled.

Axel's smile had wobbled a little at its corners. After a firm and rather brusque handshake, he'd tapped with his right hand the papers that were already bunched up unevenly in his left fist. "So, do _you_ play the piano? 'Cos they're putting me through living hell right now to learn this thing."

"Not well. In fact," he'd continued, amazed at the steadiness of his own voice, "in fact, that's how I broke my foot."

"What, pianoing?" One eyebrow arced impressively toward Axel's hairline.

"Yep, pianoed too hard." Axel's smile resurfaced, but he'd found that he could look at it this time without wanting to hide his face. "It fought back. You should be careful."

"Betcha gave as good as you got, though."

"Of course."

Axel opened his mouth to reply, but David's chuckle had interrupted. "The scene, _mes petits_ , the scene." Out of the corners of his eyes, Maxence had seen David's cocked eyebrow and small grin, and the same on Niels's face as well. Probably he'd fucked up already, and they hadn't even done a syllable of the scene yet.

But it hadn't felt important. Smiling again at Axel, however, had. So he'd smiled. Then they began.


	6. the show is over, say good-bye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _it'd be nice to see you_   
> 

**March**

Today is the day he watches, again, the final clip of their season, brought to the world a year ago. He does not want to know how many times he's seen it: before he falls asleep, right after waking, replaying it behind his eyes as he glides through the days.

He watches his hand fall on Axel—Lucas's—shoulder. He watches himself smiling, and Lucas—Axel—too.

He can still feel Axel's warm cheek against his wrist, Axel's breath against his neck, Axel's heartbeat against his own.

It's wrong. It's wrong, but he can't stop. He rolls a cigarette and tries not to count the attempts it takes him to get it lit.

No, he can. He will. Today, alone under the cool unclouded mid-spring sun, he will end it.

The last text messages from Axel had arrived just before New Year's.

 

— _I know you won't come_

_—but I'm having a birthday thing_

_—21h30, Saturday_

_—here's the address_

Then, some minutes later:

_—it'd be nice to see you_

He taps Axel's grinning face. Edit Contact. He's gotten this far before.

Scroll past the photo, the email addresses, the "je suiss le sseul" Axel had drunkenly inputted in the Other Notes box, the custom ringtone. The fucking ringtone. At least he's managed to avoid hearing that damn song since January, except one lachrymose steel-guitar cover piped into a wine bar in Prague last month.

He'd been about to head back to the hotel anyway. A headache had been coming on.

Delete. His index finger lingers and lingers.

Then his phone rings. _So you say—_

All the blood in his body rushes into his face, and he staggers heavily against a wall. Picture-frames clatter. His traitorous finger, with a reflexive twitch, slides the button to answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading. The first part of the companion/sequel is also up; I hope you'll take a look and let me know what you think.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to chase this sadfest with something less dire, please check out my other Maxel stories, the "2 boys, 1 dog, 1 snake" series co-written with my partner in crime @ryuujitsu (@hallo-catfish on tumblr), or our completed and ongoing SKAMFr works.


End file.
